RINPUNGPA: "The Scholar King". A Tibetan prince was the last of a dynasty of Ministers who ruled Tibet during the 15 and 16th centuries. He was considered one of the finest poets of the Tibetan language. Composed a guidebook to Shambhala in 1557 called "The Knowledge Bearing Messenger" as a letter to his dead father whom he believed to have been reborn in Shambhala. Complex and ornate style derived from the Sanskrit poetry of India. Piles subordinate clause on subordinate clause and makes abundant use of lavish epithets and terms even Tibetans have difficulty with.(Way to Shambhala pg 195)

Rinpungpa's Shambhala Guidebook......."Crossing Tibet westward.....to the sacred mountain of Kailas ....from Kailas continue northwest to Ladakh and down through mountains and forest to the vale of Kashmir...... then north, hrough a maze of treacherous mountains....you will pass safely through and come out in the land of the Paksik, horsemen who wear white turbans......over an 'outer ring' of sky-high ice mountains, down through a vicious desert, into unknown vistas....only to reach a second 'inner ring' of snow mountains. Beyond there, you must choose rightly among high valleys and low cities, having the good sense to know Shambhala when you reach it.........then you will at last, see the cities of Shambhala.....gleaming among ranges of snow mountains like stars on the waves of the Ocean of Milk."

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"But the most affecting of the guides was a desperate letter, called 'The Knowledge-Bearing Messenger', written in about 1560 by a Tibetan prince, Rinpungpa, who included instructions for the messenger carrying his letter to the secret land: 'Take this message and go to my father in Shambhala. May my words of truth, conquering the mountains of dualism, guide you along the way and help you to overcome the obstacles that lie before you.'.....According to Bernbaum, Rinpungpa warned of everything from starvation to forests of knives to rivers so cold they killed at first touch. Adding in the Panchen Lama's instructions, and those from the Mahabharata, it pretty much boiled down to the same thing. From the lowland Indian river valley where the Lord Buddha lived, crossing Tibet westward, via the sacred mountain of Kailas, then north, over an 'outer ring' of sky-high ice mountains, down through a vicious desert, into unknown vistas. All the while you must appease dozens of gods, accumulate merit and fend off monsters, suppress the demons of delusion and transcend mere existence, recite 99 million mantras and fly through the sky on a fire chariot, only to reach a second 'inner ring' of snow mountains. Beyond there, you must choose rightly among high valleys and low cities, having the good sense to know Shambhala when you reach it."...The Road to Shangri-La by Patrick Symmes

"Using the ancient texts, and Google Earth, I calculated this at 3,400 miles. Rinpungpa's letter would lead me through three countries, a dozen languages, past the world's highest mountains and down into the bottom of the lowest desert in Asia......We rolled west through Shigatse, along the last paved roads we would see until the Kunlun Shan, the range on Tibet's northern edge, almost a month later. Shigatse was the original source of Prince Rinpungpa's letter.......'Turn to the north and west and take the high plateau to the sacred mountain of Kailas… From Kailas continue northwest to Ladakh… wind north through a maze of treacherous mountains… come out in the land of the Paksik, horsemen who wear white turbans and quilted robes filled with cotton… a barren desert devoid of water will stretch away before you like the desolate paths of suffering that run through this world of illusion.'.....The Road to Shangri-La by Patrick Symmes

"We slept in a monastery of the Nyingma, or Ancient Ones, the original Buddhists of Tibet. Like the monk on the train, the abbot, a high re-incarnation, discouraged me from trying to reach Shambhala in a 4x4 Jeep........ Meditate more, he said, feeding me balls of yak butter mixed with tsampa, or barley flour, from his own fingertips." .....The Road to Shangri-La by Patrick Symmes .....http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3669971/The-road-to-Shangri-La.html

"Rinpung Ngawang Jigdag.....The learned Tibetan prince Rinpungpa wrote 'The Knowledge-bearing Messenger' in 1557 AD as a letter to his dead father, whom he believed had been reborn in the earthly paradise of Shambhala....In this excerpt from the poem, he gives the yogi directions for reaching Shambhala....Take this message and go to my father in Shambhala....Go first to the shrine of my father in the palace of Rinpung.....then go toward Shigatse....after that you must travel across central Tibet....stop also in the mountains of Nepal, at the holy shrine of Muktinath.....then turn to the north and west and take the high plateau to the sacred mountain of Kailas.....from Kailas continue northwest to Ladakh and down through mountains and forest to the vale of Kashmir....now the journey becomes more difficult....follow narrow paths that wind north through a maze of treacherous mountains....you will pass safely through and come out in the land of the Paksik, horsemen who wear white turbans and quilted robes with cotton.....leave them behind and go north across the plains....after many days of travel you will enter a deep forest...on the far side of this gloomy passsage, you will come to a wild foaming river called the Sita.....on the far bank you will find yoursel in a tranquil park where elephants play beneath a mountain lush with grass.....(pages 351-352 missing).....now go on across the beautiful countries that lie ahead....your path runs through idyllic towns.....then you will come to the last great obstacle of the journey....a wall of mountains piled so high and deep with snow that not even eagles can fly over it.....after crossing the mountains, you will have to go through one last forest filled with snakes and wild animals....then you will at last, see the cities of Shambhala.....gleaming among ranges of snow mountains like stars on the waves of the Ocean of Milk."........The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times.......Page 349-354......By Carol Zaleski, Philip Zaleski

?........"the land of the Paksik, horsemen who wear white turbans and quilted robes with cotton."

Ladakh ("land of high passes") (Ladakhi: ལ་དྭགས la'dwags; Hindi: लद्दाख़; Urdu: لَدّاخ‎) is a region in the Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir that currently extends from the Kuen Lun mountain range to the main Great Himalayas to the south, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent....... It is one of the most sparsely populated regions in Jammu and Kashmir and its culture and history are closely related to that of Tibet.

"The Vale of Kashmir.....Kashmir Valley is a valley located between the Karakoram and the Pir Panjal Range in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is around 135 km long and 32 km wide, formed by the Jhelum River....The Kashmir Valley, or more poetically the Vale of Kashmir, is a large valley in the Himalayan mountains and an administrative region of Jammu and Kashmir state in India."

" A Thai, he didn't believe in the stories, carefully curated over the centuries by Tibetan Buddhists, that Shambhala was a real place, a city that could be found. Shambhala, the monk told me, was a destination for an inner journey. I should meditate more, he suggested, and travel less.....The Buddhism scholar Robert Thurman looked at me with pity when I mentioned my quest during a chat at Tibet House, in New York. Gene Smith, who directs the city's Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, laughed out loud when I told him my plan. "We got a guy here going to Shambhala!" he shouted...... I ran into Peter Matthiessen, the author of The Snow Leopard, which mentions Shambhala three times, speculating that the hidden kingdom may have been based on some real but forgotten city or culture, out beyond the Gobi. "One must go oneself," he wrote, "to know the truth......So I told him I was going. Matthiessen shook his head. "It's really more of an idea," he said......By consensus, I was on a fool's errand, headed to a place that couldn't be reached...The current Dalai Lama insists the kingdom is real.".......http://www.outsideonline.com/1886931/kingdom-lotus

"A letter called "The Knowledge-Bearing Messenger," written around 1560 by a Tibetan prince named Rinpungpa.......One cold winter day, I drew out a rare copy of the prince's letter from the closed stacks of the New York Public Library. The manuscript, written in medieval Tibetan, was printed on long, loose-leaf pages that mimicked the palm leaves used in ancient Buddhist books. I had brought a red-robed monk, a young Tibetan from Staten Island, to attempt a translation, and when I unwrapped the book in his presence, a crowd of hushed bibliophiles gathered to watch......Rinpungpa was surrounded by enemies, his world collapsing. Buddhism was no longer practiced in India, its land of birth, and Islam had conquered Afghanistan to the west and the Central Asian steppe to the north. Rinpungpa's own clan had ruled brutally, and the prince correctly surmised that his days were limited. Seeking help, he summoned a spirit messenger to reach the enlightened kingdom, where his own father would be waiting, reborn in paradise.....Take this message and go to my father in Shambhala."....The Kingdom of the Lotus.....by: Patrick Symmes ....2007

“For me, Shambhala, you see, turned out to be not a goal but an absence. Not the discovery of a place but the act of leaving the futureless place where I was. And in the process I arrived at Constantinople.”― Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day (2006).. Against the Day is the story of a quest.... Above and beneath it all is the search for an ancient place, a holy grail, known as Shambhala. There resides a secret of life. Meanwhile, a weapon that destroys everything is for sale. It appears to be entropic in nature from the clues Pynchon provides....Ringpungpa is quoted by Pynchon...."

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772 AD) .......a Swedish scientist, philosopher, theologian, revelator, and mystic..........Renowned most of his life for his contributions to the natural sciences, Swedenborg had a spiritual awakening in his 50s and published what is now his most famous work — a description of the afterlife called "Heaven and Hell."...(1758 AD)...Highly regarded after his death by philosophers and mystics, Swedenborg claimed he could visit heaven and hell at will and that his ideas about spirituality, God, and Christ came to him in dreams and visions.....

"Swedenborg was fascinated with the 'Shambhala' myth, and under cover of employment for the Swedish East India Company and his appointment to the Swedish Court as Master Ironmaster and Miner...... his interest in India and Central Asia, and the sexual rites that went with his New Jerusalem Society, later to be frequented by William Blake....Swedenborg became intrigued by the similarity of Yogic Tantra techniques of mediatation and sexual magic to Kabbalistic techniques....Swedenborg argued that the Yogis of Central Asia discovered the secrets of Kabbalism long before the Jews....Gershom Scholem also noticed that, already in the thirteenth century, in the Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia, (1240- 1291 AD) the techniques used 'to aid the ascent of the soul, such as breathing exercises, the repition of divine names, and meditations on colours, bear a marked resemblance to those of Indian Yoga and Muslim Sufism."....Page 137.....Black Terror White Soldiers: Islam, Fascism & the New Age.....By David Livingstone

"The Swedish East India Company (Swedish: Svenska Ostindiska Companiet or SOIC) was founded in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1731 for the purpose of conducting trade with the Far East.....In 1736 Swedenborg wrote to King Frederick, requesting a 3-4 year leave of absence to travel to the Continent.... he presented a different rationale than his actual complex agenda.....his mission included political-military intelligence work, Moravian-Masonic contacts, and Kabbalistic-Hermetic research.....while in Hamburg, Swedenborg pursued his investigations in Jewish mysticism....he later recorded that he achieved a signigicant psychic breakthrough in August 1736, while in Amsterdam.....perhaps he learned somthing of Kabbalistic brathing and meditaion techniques from the Jews in Hanover or from Moravians living in the Jewish community in Amsterdam. Swedenborg noted that he began to experiment with breath control.....In August 1736 he moved on to Paris where he lived for 19 months....his journal was interspersed with dream sequences and he was involved with Masonic and Freemasonry in Paris....in 1738 he left Paris and was on his way to Italy.....in Lyon, he visited the Library of the Jesuits, where Chevalier Ramsay had earlier studied the mystical manuscripts brought from China by Jesuit missionaries....Ramsay was assimilating Chinese notions of the 'Heaven Man' into Kabbalistic notions of 'Adam Kadmon, the Grand Man....themes that he wove into Masonic philosophy.....he arrived in Turin in March 1738....of further interest to Swedenborg would be Rehbinder' alchemical studies and contacts.....he contacted some Jesuits who dabbled in alchemy....Swedenborg learend of the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher's Kabbalistic interpretation of the Tabula Isiaca, which drew heavily on the Sepher Yetzirah and Zohar..........Emanuel Swedenborg, Secret Agent on Earth and in Heaven: Jacobites, Jews and ...edited by Marsha Keith Schuchard......https://books.google.com/books?id=RzvBUj_gvecC&pg=PA221&lpg=PA221&dq=Swedenborg+Swedish+East+India+Company&source=bl&ots=gOGynliT1s&sig=9k2hjYyl_ub1kn_I1Pb17OhpgZ4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDyOCS_tbLAhXBtIMKHcXfCBMQ6AEIMTAC#v=onepage&q=Swedenborg%20Swedish%20East%20India%20Company&f=false

"D. T. Suzuki, the Japanese scholar who would later become world-famous for his many books on Zen, was introduced to Swedenborg sometime during his years working with Paul Carus in Illinois (1897-1908). ......A correspondence with Swedenborgians in the Philadelphia area led to an invitation to translate Heaven and Hell into Japanese, which was accomplished during a Christmas-time visit to London. Upon returning to his homeland Suzuki introduced Swedenborg to Japan by publishing that translation in 1910, followed by Divine Love and Wisdom and The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine (both 1914), and Divine Providence (1915). In addition, he published his own study in Japanese entitled, simply, Swedenborg (1915). Much of this was compiled from English sources but the introductory first chapter was original and notes that: 'The theological doctrines presented by Swedenborg have some similarity to those of Buddhism... True salvation rests upon a harmonious unity of what one believes with what one does. Wisdom and Love are the manifestation of the Divine, and Love has more depth and breadth than Wisdom. The Divine Providence reaches into the minutest things in the universe. There must not be any occurrences that happen by accident.....In 1927 Suzuki published a nine-page article suggesting that Swedenborg's doctrine of correspondences may be compared with the Shingon doctrine that phenomena are aspects of Mahavairocana Buddha's ceaseless teaching."......The Dharma of Emanuel Swedenborg: A Buddhist Perspective.....By David Loy

"The notion of an “Oriental Kabbalah” began with Swedenborg... and was especially promoted by the Chevalier Michael Ramsay of the Hindu Tantra as an expression of an 'Asian Kabbalah'......Page 77.....By David Livingstone......Transhumanism: The History of a Dangerous Idea

"While associating with Moravian and Jewish mystics in London, the 56 year old Swedenborg learned how to perform the mystical Kabbalistic marriage within his mind, through the sublimatin of his sexual energy into visionary energy. By meditating on the male and female potencies concealed in the vessels of Hebrew letters, by visualizing these letters in the forms of human bodies, by regulating the inhalation and exhalation of breath, and by achieving an erection without ejaculation...the Kabbalist could achieve a state that elevated him to higher realms.....Marsha Schuchard has found that grail of researchers - original documents that confirm suspicions about her subject. In this case they are surviving records of the unworldly Moravian Chapel in Fetter Lane showing how William Blake's family were worshippers at this shrine of eroticism...She gives a close reading of the more rewarding poems such as "The Crystal Cabinet" and "Long John Brown and Little Mary Bell". These, she says, suggest sex practices aimed at visionary breakthrough, while Swedenborg's belief that "the great toe communicates with the genitals" is demonstrated by Blake's self-portrait "William", showing his body flung back while a flaming star descends toward his left foot. Weird stuff, indeed.."........Marsha Keith Schuchard: Why Mrs Blake Cried...Swedenborg, Blake and the Sexual Basis of Spiritual Vision.....

"The secret and mystical sexual practices at the heart of William Blake’s creative and spiritual life ......Reveals newly discovered family documents connecting Blake’s mother and Blake himself to Moravian and Swedenborgian erotic and visionary experimentation ......Shows Blake had access to kabbalistic and tantric techniques of psychoerotic meditation, which used sexual arousal to achieve spiritual vision..... Marsha Keith Schuchard shows that Blake and his wife, Catherine, were influenced by secret kabbalistic and tantric rituals designed to transcend the bonds of social convention. Her exhaustive research provides a new context for understanding the mystical practices at the heart of Blake’s most radical beliefs about sexualized spirituality and its relation to visionary art." ...William Blake's Sexual Path to Spiritual Vision by Marsha Keith Schuchard (2008)

"Andrew Michael Ramsay (1686 – 1743 AD), commonly called the Chevalier Ramsay, was a Scottish-born writer who lived most of his adult life in France. He was a Baronet in the Jacobite Peerage.....Ramsay's works include:.......Les voyages de Cyrus (London, 1728; Paris, 1727): Engl. 'The travels of Cyrus to which is annexe'd a discourse upon the theology & mythology of the pagans' – a book composed in avowed imitation of Fenelon's ''Les avantures de Télémaque''........http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/ramsay_biography_oration.html

"William Blake’s desire for concubines, following the example of Biblical Patriarch Abraham, which reportedly made his wife cry, prompting Blake to give up the plan. .....Sanctified sexuality, however, never left his imagination and it went far beyond Biblical concubines and included the Jewish esoteric beliefs of the Kabbalah, ‘celestial marriage’ practised by the Moravians and Swedenborgians, as well as Indian Yogic and Tantric traditions of sacred sex. And it all began at home, when his parents became members of the Moravian Congregation of the Lamb in Fetter Lane, London...The Moravians, who originated in Czechoslovakia and migrated to Saxony, were a sectarian fellowship under eccentric German nobleman Nicolaus von Zinzendorf. ."

"The Moravian Church is one of the oldest Protestant denominations in the world, with its heritage dating back to the Bohemian Reformation in the fifteenth century.......their heritage began in 1457 in Bohemia (and its crown lands, Moravia and Silesia), then an autonomous kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire. This region today is part of the Czech Republic.....The first printed edition of the Gesar epic was published in Beijing in 1716 in a Mongolian version. It was this text which formed the basis for the first Western-language translation, a Russian version published by the Moravian missionary Isaac Jacob Schmidt in 1836. A German translation followed in 1839. Another Moravian missionary, August Hermann Francke, collected and translated a version from Lower Ladakh between 1905 and 1909.....At ﬁrst the Moravians had no intention at all to evangelize Tibet......... and the Lower Ladakhi version of the Gesar saga that was edited by her husband....A Russian translation of the Mongolian Geser texts, which had been printed in Beijing from 1716 onwards, was published by the Moravian missionary Isaak Jakob Schmidt in 1836; a German translation followed in 1839."

"Abraham Abulafia (1240- 1291 AD).....in his later writings, the founder of prophetic Kabbalah produces a synthesis between Maimonides’ Neoaristotelian understanding of prophecy as the result of the transformation of the intellectual influx into a linguistic message and techniques to reach such experiences by means of combinations of letters and their pronunciation, breathing exercises, contemplation of parts of the body, movements of the head and hands, and concentration exercises.".....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Abulafia

Monday, March 21, 2016

"The tzimtzum or tsimtsum (Hebrew צמצום ṣimṣūm "contraction/constriction/condensation") is a term used in the Lurianic Kabbalah to explain Isaac Luria's (1534-1572 AD) doctrine that G-d began the process of creation by "contracting" his Ein Sof (infinite) light in order to allow for a "conceptual space" (Primordial Space) in which finite and seemingly independent realms could exist. This primordial initial contraction, forming a Chalal/Khalal/Khalal Hapanui ("vacant space", חלל הפנוי) into which new creative light could beam, is denoted by general reference to the tzimtzum.".......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzimtzum

"These tzimtzum are all in the nature of a 'veiling of the countenance' to obscure and conceal the light and life-force so that it shall not manifest itself in a greater radiance than the lower worlds are capable of receiving.".....Schochet (page 57)

"The term En Sof indicates no grasping nor any thought, prior to all that are emanated, created, formed and fashioned....no time of start, no beginning, no end, continually present, absolute perfection."

"Ein Sof, or Ayn Sof (/eɪn sɒf/, Hebrew: אין סוף), in Kabbalah.....may be translated as "no end", "unending", "there is no end", or infinity. It was first used by Azriel ben Menahem, (c. 1160 – c. 1238 AD) who, sharing the Neoplatonic belief that God can have no desire, thought, word, or action, emphasized by it the negation of any attribute. Of the Ein Sof, nothing ("Ein") can be grasped ("Sof"-limitation). It is the origin of the Ohr Ein Sof, the "Infinite Light" of paradoxical divine self-knowledge, nullified within the Ein Sof prior to creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first act of creation, the Tzimtzum self "withdrawal" of God to create an "empty space", takes place from there. In Hasidism, the Tzimtzum is only the illusionary concealment of the Ohr Ein Sof, giving rise to monistic panentheism.".....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ein_Sof

"Primordial Space....brought about by a contraction and concentration of Divinity into itself....this first act of creation was to bring about space in which the divine emanations and the evolving finite world could have a place to exist....it was screened, dimmed, hidden and concealed...where this concealment and occulation of the light occurred, an 'empty' place, a 'void' evolved into primordial space....this is the act of the first tzimtzum, an act of 'Divine Self Limitation' rather than 'Divine Revelation'.....

"In the second phase of the creative process, an overt ray or radiation of the divine light beams into the primeval space of the chalal (a void)......this thin ray or line (kav....the thin line of energy that emerges after the tzimtzum) irradiates the chalal and is the source of the subsequent emanations....it is both the creative and the vivifying force of creation.....the 'kav' itself undergoes a series of contractions and concealments making possible successively lower stages of creation.....the lowest stage is the finite, pluralistic and material world.....lower beings in this world are in a state of finitude and limitation."........Schochet (page 56)

"Tzimtzum, the process of a progressing dimming, occulation and condensation of the light of the En Sof, brought about umerous levels, one lower than the other.....The are referred to as the Five Realms or Worlds....the 'higher' worlds receive a radiance infinitely greater than the 'lower' ones.".....Schochet (page 105)

"Change depends on time..... it is a relative, temporal-spatial concept....time and space are themselves creations....from our temporal-spatial perspective there is 'before' and 'after' but not from the supra-temporal/spatial perspective."

"Because the tzimtzum results in the "empty space" in which spiritual and physical Worlds and ultimately, free will can exist, G-d is often referred to as "Ha-Makom" (המקום lit. "the Place", "the Omnipresent") in Rabbinic literature ("He is the Place of the World, but the World is not His Place"). In Kabbalistic interpretation, this describes the paradox of simultaneous Divine presence and absence within the vacuum and resultant Creation. Relatedly, Olam — the Hebrew for "World/Realm" — is derived from the root עלם meaning "concealment". This etymology is complementary with the concept of Tzimtzum in that the subsequent spiritual realms and the ultimate physical universe conceal to different degrees the infinite spiritual lifeforce of creation. Their progressive diminutions of the Divine Ohr (Light) from realm to realm in creation are also referred to in the plural as secondary tzimtzumim (innumerable "condensations/veilings/constrictions" of the lifeforce). However, these subsequent concealments are found in earlier, Medieval Kabbalah. The new doctrine of Luria advanced the notion of the primordial withdrawal (a dilug - radical "leap") in order to reconcile a causal creative chain from the Infinite with finite Existence."....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzimtzum

"The symbol of Tikkun ha-Olam embodies the most distinctively Jewish, as well as the the single most important ethical injunction of the Kabbalah: the command that humanity must restore and redeem a broken and fallen world (see Shevirat ha-Kelim).....as articulated by Isaac Luria in 16th century Safed.....the Unification of G-d and His Shekhina: An erotic union between the masculine and feminine aspects of G-d is an important Kabbalistic symbol which predates and was incorporated into the Lurianic symbol of Tikkun. The Zohar holds that G-d's feminine aspect is exiled on earth as the "Shekhinah" and that she must be reunited with "The Holy One Blessed Be He." The unity between the masculine and feminine aspects of the godhead was broken by the sins of mankind, and the exile of the Jewish people, and is maintained by the "Other Side". Through the observance of the mitzvot and divine worship, humankind is able to reestablish the union between God and His Shekhina,".....http://www.newkabbalah.com/tikkun.html

Mystical Concepts in Chassidism.....1979.....by Immanuel Schochet.....Brooklyn,New York......Jacob Immanuel Schochet is a rabbi of Kielcer Congregation and a well-known authority on Jewish Philosophy and Mysticism.

"The teachings of the Kabbalah originally were restricted to 'Yechidei Segulah'....a chosen few whose saintliness matched their scholarship...R. Isaac Luria (1534-1572 AD) declared that as of then it was not only permissible but a duty to reveal Pnimiyut haTorah, the esoteric part of Torah."......Schochet (page 17)

Transhumanism: The History of a Dangerous Idea......Page 77.....By David Livingstone

Sunday, March 20, 2016

"Lamayuru or Yuru Monastery (Tibetan: བླ་མ་གཡུང་དྲུང་དགོན་པ་, Wylie: bla ma gyung drung dgon pa "Eternal Monastery", Lama Yungdrung Gonpa......Urdu: لمیرو گومپا‎) is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Lamayouro, Leh district, India. It is situated on the Srinagar-Leh highway 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) east of the Fotu La ....A. H. Francke states that, "according to popular tradition," it was originally the foremost Bon monastery in Ladakh; its name means sauwastika and is a popular symbol in Bon for "eternity". .....Yungdrung is the name of the most popular school of Bon..... It is currently affiliated with the Drikung Kagyu school of Buddhism....Francke, A. H. (1977). A History of Ladakh. (Originally published as, A History of Western Tibet, (1907).

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"Lamayuru......Yungdrung Tharpaling (g.yung drung thar pa gling), known today as Lamayuru, is the most ancient monastery of Ladakh.... LamaYuru, a vast monastery complex on a steep outcrop of earth..... Legend has it that the region where Yungdrung Tharpaling is situated today, approximately 127 km to the west of Leh, the capital of Ladakh, at the time of Buddha Shakyamuni was under a big lake, which was home to many Nagas. Rising prominently from the eastern part of the lake was a little dry hill which was locally called Skambur. It is said that the Arahat Madhyantika, when he visited the lake at Lamayuru and made water offerings to the Nagas, made a crack into the ground of the lake with his walking staff to leak out the water. He also pronounced the prophecy that in the future, the teachings of Sutra and Tantra unified will flourish in this place.."..... http://www.drikung.org/drikung-kagyu-lineage/main-monasteries/ladakh/lamayuru

"Mahasiddha Naropa (c. 1016–1100) visited Lamayuru coming from Zanskar...... He spent a long time in strict retreat in a cave there and turned the place into a sacred land. The cave still exists, well preserved and forms part of the main shrine of Lamayuru Monastery.......When Naropa was a great yogi, that he visited Kashmir. He came to Sani in Zanskar and to Lama Yuru in Ladakh.....at Sani the stupa here was built 2,500 years ago they say. It is called Kaniska or Sani Kaniska.....Guru Rinpoche came some 1300 years ago and mediated here establishing the cremation grounds and many springs. Then 1000 years ago came Naropa who meditated in front of the Kaniska Stupa."..... http://www.drikung.org/drikung-kagyu-lineage/main-monasteries/ladakh/lamayuru......http://naropa.edu/documents/programs/ma-environmental-leadership/footsteps.pdf

"Later in his life Naropa stayed in Phullahari, where he died aged 85 (c. 1040 AD)....One of the few reliable historical accounts of him comes from a Tibetan translator named Ngatso Lotsawa, who made an effort to visit Naropa at the monastery of Phullahari while waiting to visit with Atiśa at Vikramashila:......' I thought I would go see the Lord Naropa, since his reputation was so great.... On the day I arrived, they said some feudal prince had come to pay homage. So I went to the spot, and a great throne had been erected. I sat right in front of it. The whole crowd started buzzing, "The Lord is coming!" I looked and the Lord was physically quite corpulent, with his white hair [stained with henna] bright red, and a vermilion turban on. He was being carried [on a palanquin] by four men, and was chewing betel-leaf....So, there I saw the Lord's face, but did not actually hear his voice."......Davidson, Ronald M. Indian Esoteric Buddhism. pg 317. Columbia University Press, 2003.

"In 1038 the great translator Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055) built five temples at Lamayuru. These were among the 108 temples and stupas he erected in Spiti and Ladakh. One of the five temples at Lamayuru is still in perfect condition."...... http://www.drikung.org/drikung-kagyu-lineage/main-monasteries/ladakh/lamayuru

"The Lamayuru monastery, which is around 125 kms away from Leh. During the Yuru Kabgyat Festival, the monks perform mask dances, prayers and rituals in order to get away from any kind of disaster and for bringing in peace in the world. This is a pre-historic monastery, which is called Yuru Gonpa by the locals. This festival is dedicated to Yuru Kabgyat and his mythical connection...The main objective behind this masked dance drama is to appease the deity.....The Yuru Kabgyat dance consists of Chams in which the Lamas dance in the form of circles with large colorful masks. This circular movement is often accompanied by drum beats, long pipes and cymbals. The masks are usually made from paper mache and there is also a thin coat of plaster enveloping it.....The main figures portrayed are the Yama or the Lord of Death and Padmasambhava..... At Lamayuru in Leh, this dance is a renowned dance drama which is held every year during the Yuru Kabgyat festival, (held around July –August.) This dance drama concludes with sacrificial offerings......http://www.lehladakhindia.com/festivals/yuru-kabgyat-festival/

"Zanskar (“bzang-dkar”, meaning good (or beautiful) and white).......Zanskar, together with the neighbouring region of Ladakh, was briefly a part of the kingdom of Guge in Western Tibet......The majority of Zanskaris are of mixed Tibetan and Indo-European origins; notably Changpa, Dard and Mon.... It is suspected that an Indo-European population known as the Mon might then have lived in this region, before mixing with or being replaced by the next settlers, the Dards. Early Buddhism coming from Kashmir spread its influence in Zanskar, possibly as early as 200 BC. The earliest monuments date from the Kushan period. After this eastward propagation of Buddhism, Zanskar and large parts of the Western Himalaya were overrun in the 7th century by the Tibetans, who imposed their Bön religion.......Buddhism regained its influence over Zanskar in the 8th century when Tibet was also converted to this religion. Between the 10th and 11th centuries, two Royal Houses were founded in Zanskar, and the monasteries of Karsha and Phugtal (see picture) were built. Until the 15th century Zanskar existed as a more or less independent Buddhist Kingdom ruled by between two and four related royal families..".....Namgail, T. (2004). "Zangskar: mystic land". Sanctuary Asia 24: 44–47.

"Guge was an ancient kingdom in Western Tibet. The kingdom was centered in present-day Zanda County, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region. At various points in history after the 10th century AD, the kingdom held sway over a vast area including south-eastern Zanskar, Upper Kinnaur district, and Spiti Valley, either by conquest or as tributaries. The ruins of the former capital of the Guge kingdom are located at Tsaparang in the Sutlej valley, not far from Mount Kailash and 1,200 miles (1,900 km) westwards from Lhasa.....Guge was founded in the 10th c. AD.....Nyi ma mgon, a great-grandson of Langdarma, the last monarch of the Tibetan Empire, established a kingdom in Ngari (West Tibet) in or after 912 ADand annexed Puhrang and Guge. He established his capital in Guge.....

Thursday, March 17, 2016

"Accounts of Tonpa Shenrab's life are to be found in the Zermik (Wylie: gzer mig....Clear Eye), and Ziji (Wylie: gzi brjid). The gZermig was a terma text discovered by tertön in the 10th century AD.........Tulku Loden Nyingpo (1360-1385) discovered the famed Zibji (gzi brjid), the longest version of Tonpa Shenrab’s biography in the 14th Century AD...... "....Karmey, Samten G. (1975). A General Introduction to the History and Doctrines of Bon, pp. 175-176. Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, No. 33. Tokyo.

"The Bon Master Shenrap and the Redemption of Tobu Dode:......In the opening sceses of chapter 5 of the Zermik or 'Clear Eye'....a young boy named Yu Zurpuchen , who has crystal skin and sports a magical coat of mail, arrives in the Bonpo holy land of Olmo Lungring riding a turquoise dragon....the boy reveals himself to be an emanation of Sangpo Bumtri, a creator deity in the Bonpo pantheon of Gods:...At that time there came from the void sky....the little boy Yui Zurpuchen....of a complexion as clear as crystal, arrayed in a coat covered with magic writ, riding on the blue horse of the turquoise dragen....He came to Olmo Lungring, the Land of the Shen, where the savior Shenrap Miwo...before innumerable disciples preached the Bon tenets of the three Peutse....."I am Zurpuchen, the little boy of your heart....on my body whose tint is clear as crystal, I am clothed with a coat full of magic writ, I ride on the blue horse of the swift thunder dragon, that is laden with the small light bag of the To......I am an emanation of Sangpo Bumtri, I come to you, oh Shenrab....speaking thus he dismantled his dragon horse quickly.....".........A.H. Francke...gZermig: A book of the Tibetan Bonpos....Asia Major (1927) 206-213.

"August Hermann Francke (Gnadenfrei, Silesia, 5 November 1870 – Berlin, 16 February 1930) was a German Tibetologist.....He was a Moravian Church missionary in the Himalayas serving in that capacity in Ladakh, a major region of Jammu and Kashmir Province from 1896 until 1909. He was subsequently appointed professor of Tibetan languages at Berlin University.....After Yoseb Gergan produced the first draft of the Tibetan Bible in 1910, Francke corrected it and then sent it to David Macdonald, the British trade agent in Yatung. Also involved was his Moravian colleague Heinrich Jäschke who produced A Tibetan-English dictionary."....

Asia Major was founded in Germany in 1923 by Bruno Schindler, and soon became the leading German outlet for scholarship on East Asia...Asia Major. Editores Bruno Schindler et Friedrich Weller.......https://www.jstor.org/journal/asiamajor

"... sTon-pa ggen-rab, "The Teacher
Shen-rab", and his biography is to be found, as any bon-po knows, in
the two volumes of "gZer-mig". sTon-pa gSen-rab lived in the
country of sTag-gzig which is generally placed rather vaguely somewhere
to the west or north-west of Tibet .....The first seven of the eighteen chapters of "gZer-mig" have been published
and translated by A. H. Francke in Asia Major 1924, I926, 1927, 1930 and 1939.
The contents of the whole book have been summarized by H. Hoffmann The
Religions of Tibet, London i96I, p. 85-96. ".....ASPECTS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE
BUDDHIST TRADITION IN TIBET by PER KVERNE......University of Bergen, Norway

Bellezza, John Vincent. (2010). "gShen-rab Myi-bo, His life and times according to Tibet’s earliest literary sources." Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines Number 19 October 2010, pp. 31–118.

"The gZer-mig and gZi-brjid are both published by the Bonpo Foundation, Dolanji, 1965 and 1967-69, respectively. Extracts from the gZi-brjid have been edited and translated by D.L. Snellgrove, The Nine Ways of Bon, London Oriental Series, vol. 18, London 1967. The first seven chapters of gZer-mig and part of the eighth have been translated into English by A.H. Franke, 'A Book of the Tibetan Bonpos', Asia Major, Leipzig 1924, 1926, 1927, 1930; Asia Major (New Series) 1, London 1949. A summary of the contents of gZer-mig has been made by H. Hoffmann in The Religions of Tibet, London 1961, 85-96."

"There are three biographies of Tonpa Shenrab. The earliest and shortest one is known as Dodu (mDo-'dus: 'Epitome of Aphorisms'); the second is in two volumes and is called Zermig (gZer-mig: 'Piercing Eye')......These two accounts were rediscovered as terma in the 10th and 11th centuries respectively ......In the year 1017 AD, Shenchen Luga (gShen-chen klu-dga') came from eastern Tibet and discovered two large wooden boxes containing many Bonpo texts in the Tibetan language, which had been buried at Drigtsam Thakar ('brig-mtsham mtha' dkar) in Tsang Province, near the ancestral seat of the Shen clan...... It was principally this discovery that led to the revival of Bon in central Tibet in the eleventh century...."....http://www.drjameshenley.us/sutra-system/shenchen-luga-and-the-revival-of-bon.html